Guest Post: Why Separation of Church and State IS Religious Freedom

I made a comment the other day about needing to get drunk and rant about Amendment 2 in Missouri, and low, my friend Yeti_Detective decided that he would go ahead and do that before I got a chance. Since he’s my friend, I relented and decided that I would post it on the site today. I think he believes that I have some sort of divine link to the internet hive mind or something.

You should be warned that the following article is Rated R. Yeti_Detective has a tendency to drop the “f-bomb.”

So Amendment 2 passed in Missouri’s most recent election. This amendment affirms the rights of Missourians to their freedom of religion, according to the most commonly circulated text. I voted against it because even that benign description just makes it sound like self-righteous assholes defending something that is not even remotely under attack.
When people in this country talk about the “war on religion,” what they’re really talking about is their crusade to force their religious beliefs on the public at large. Their ‘defense of religion,’ ironically, is the biggest threat to the religious freedom upon which America was so strongly founded.

I don’t mean to say that freedom of religion was the only reason this country’s founders did the things they did, but it was a major fucking sticking point. It was definitely bigger than capitalism, which existed before the revolution, and I don’t think any of them ever even mentioned Modern American evangelical conservatives believe a lot of stupid things. A lot. Like, virtually every goddamn thing they believe is stupid. Let me list them.

The earth is only 6000 years old. This is a dumb thing to believe because we have very reliable methods in modern times for telling how old something is, including the earth. Also, the number 6000 isn’t in the Bible, but was arrived at by a bishop using math that even the most illiterate klansman/juggalo would find dubious.

(Before any juggalos/klansmen get offended, I’m not saying that the two are similar in belief structure. Only in intelligence level. Replace “fucking magnets, how do they work?” with, “fucking genetics, how does it work?” and you’ll start to see a pattern unfolding.)

The homosexual agenda involves anything other than ‘get equal rights’ and ‘get them to stop beating us to death.’ At this point I won’t even compare evangelicals to juggalos, because it’s too insulting to juggalos.

And the final, and stupidest thing evangelical conservatives believe:

Their religion is under attack in American culture.

No. It. Fucking. Is. Not. Unless you consider that a large part of their religion involves forcing their beliefs on others, denying equal rights to whatever minorities they can get away with persecuting at the time, (They didn’t come out of the civil rights movement of the 60s looking too good,) and keeping women barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen.

If you consider that, it still isn’t even so much that their religion is under attack as it is being defended against. They practice Assault Religion while simultaneously attempting to play a passive-aggressive sympathy card.

Let me quote Republican State Representative Mike McGhee, one of amendment 2’s sponsors, who says that the amendment will remind people about their religious freedoms. “It’s OK to bring your Bible to study hall.”

Really, Mike? Is it fucking really? Because I haven’t been to public school in a while, but I’m pretty sure that when I was there I brought my fucking Bible. In fact, the second time I read the Bible through almost entirely took place in study hall and my lunch break of my junior year. I went to the fucking prayer club at my high school. Once a year or more, Christian students will gather around their public school’s flag pole and hold hands and pray in an event called, “See you at the pole.” Look that shit up. It happens in, I am comfortable with speculating, every goddamn public high school in the entire country, and probably even most of the middle schools. And that’s fine. Those kids are allowed to do that. Your charade of religious persecution not only belittles the faith of those kids, it reveals your own hypocrisy as well as that of everyone who supports you. Anyone who believes that prayer isn’t allowed in school just never fucking even tried to pray in school. I did. So, fuck you, Mike McGhee.

I’ll finish with this.

Separation of church and state is the same as freedom of religion. It means the government can’t tell you what religion to follow or what god to worship. But it also means it can’t tell your neighbors what religion to follow or what god to worship. Secularism is not anti-religion. In fact, it is the most pro-religion stance there is, because it allows everyone to have faith in whatever they decide to have faith in. When you vote to put the ten commandments in a court house, what you’re really saying is, “Fuck you, buddhists, hindus, agnostics and atheists.” When you lobby to put a nativity scene in a publicly funded space, what you’re really saying is, “Fuck you, Jews. My holiday is better.” And when you do any of these things you’re saying, “Fuck you, founders of this country. I will invoke your spirits in order to force my beliefs on other people which is something you founded an entire nation in defiance of.”

And when you do that, you’re basically the worst piece of shit to ever stink up this continent. I hope you choke on your fucking chicken sandwich.

Yeti_detective is an angry man that gets drunk and live tweets movies on twitter, or gets drunker and rants on Tumblr. You can also read his other editorial work in What White Elephant each month. If you’re an astute listener, you’ll know him as the drunken half of the Half Drunk Podcast.

Published by M.A. Brotherton

M.A. Brotherton is a writer, blogger, artist, and fat-kid from the suburbs of Kansas City, Missouri. He’s tasted a little bit of everything the Midwest has to offer, ranging from meth-tweaking rednecks in massive underground cave complexes to those legendary amber waves of grain. When he’s not writing, he spends most of his time screwing around on the internet.